How to Add Motion Blur in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2018)

Adding motion blur is the key to making any animated effect look realistic. Motion blur happens all the time in real life. Move your head back and forth quickly and everything streaks and blurs. Our eyes and cameras both capture this naturally, so when it is missing from an animation, something feels off.

A lot of people think you need After Effects to add motion blur, but you can actually do it right in Premiere Pro using the Transform effect. It has a built-in shutter angle control that creates real motion blur on any animated property. Today we will go over how to add motion blur in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

How to Add Motion Blur in Premiere Pro

1. Import the asset you want to animate and add motion blur to. This could be text, a graphic, an image, or even a video clip.
2. Go to the Effects panel and search for Transform (under Video Effects > Distort). Drag it onto your clip.
3. In Effect Controls, find the Transform effect. You will see familiar properties like Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity.
4. Important: Use the Transform effect’s motion properties instead of the clip’s built-in Motion controls. The built-in Motion controls do not support motion blur. Only the Transform effect does.
5. Animate your asset however you want. Move the position, change the scale, rotate it. Click the stopwatch to create keyframes and set your starting and ending values.
6. After setting up your animation, scroll down in the Transform effect to find Use Composition’s Shutter Angle. Uncheck this box.
7. Now find the Shutter Angle property below it. Drag this value up to add motion blur. The higher the number, the more blur you get. Start around 180 for a natural cinematic look and go higher if you want something more dramatic.

When to Use This

• Text animations. Any time you have text sliding in or revealing, motion blur smooths out the movement.
• Shake effects. When you shake the footage with position keyframes, motion blur makes the shake look real instead of choppy.
• Scale animations. Zooming in or out on a clip with the Transform effect benefits from motion blur, especially fast zooms.
• Any keyframed movement. If you are animating something in Premiere Pro and it looks too crisp or stuttery, motion blur is usually the fix.

Tips

• The Transform effect replaces the built-in Motion controls. Once you apply Transform, use its properties for all positioning and animation. Don’t mix both or things can get confusing.
• If you need motion blur in After Effects instead, check out how to add motion blur in After Effects. The process is different but the concept is the same.
• Higher shutter angles cost more render time. If your preview is lagging, lower the shutter angle while editing and bump it up for the final export.

That’s it. A really simple but powerful technique. Any time you animate motion in Premiere Pro, the Transform effect with motion blur should be your go-to.